Spin-Logic Research Promises to Help Reduce Power Consumption of
Electronic Devices and Improve Battery Life

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 3, 2014 —
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers collaborating with and
sponsored by Intel Corporation through the Semiconductor Research
Corporation (SRC), the world’s leading university-research consortium
for semiconductors and related technologies, have developed a
physics-based modeling platform that advances spintronics interconnect
research for beyond-CMOS computing.

Spin-logic aims at reducing power consumption of electronic devices,
thereby improving battery life and reducing energy consumption in
computing for a whole range of electronic product applications from
portable devices to data centers.

“After more than four decades of exponential growth in the performance
of electronic integrated circuits, it is now apparent that improving the
energy efficiency of computing is a primary challenge,” said Ian A.
Young, a collaborator and co-author of the research and a Senior Fellow
at Intel Corporation. “There is a global search for information
processing elements that use computational state variables other than
electronic charge, and these devices are being sought to bring in new
functionalities and further lower the power dissipation in computers.”

One of the main motivations behind the search for a next-generation
computing switch beyond CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor)
devices is to sustain the advancement of Moore’s Law.
Nanomagnetic/spintronic devices provide a complementary option to
electronics. The added functionality of this option includes the
non-volatility of information on-chip, which is in essence a combination
of logic and memory functions. However, to benefit from the increase in
density of the on-chip devices, there has to be adequate connectivity
among the switches—which is the focus of the Georgia Tech research.

Among the potential alternatives, devices based on nanoscale magnets in
the field of spintronics have received special attention thanks to their
advantages in terms of robustness and enhanced functionality. Magnets
are non-volatile: their state remains even if the power to the circuit
is switched off. Thus, the circuits do not consume power when not used—a
very desirable property for modern tablets and smart phones.

One of the most important aspects of any new information processing
element is how fast and power efficient they can communicate over an
interconnect system with one another. In today’s CMOS chips, more energy
is consumed communicating between transistor logic functions than
actually processing of information. The Georgia Tech research has
therefore focused on this important aspect of communicating between
spin-logic devices and demonstrates that interconnects are an even more
important challenge for beyond-CMOS switches.

To analyze spintronic interconnects, the Georgia Tech team and their
Intel collaborators have developed compact models for spin transport in
copper and aluminum—taking into account the scattering at wire surfaces
and grain boundaries that become quite dominant at nanoscale dimensions.
The research team has also developed compact models for the nanomagnet
dynamic, electronic and spintronic transport through magnet to
non-magnet interfaces, electric currents and spin diffusion. These
models are all based on familiar electrical elements such as resistors
and capacitors and can therefore be analyzed using standard circuit
simulation tools such as SPICE.

“This work is showing the way for how spintronics can create
energy-efficient computation by including not only the spin logic
functional circuit blocks, but also the interconnect system parameters,”
said Jon Candelaria, director of Interconnect and Packaging Sciences at
SRC. ”This will help establish a much more realistic and accurate
prediction of computing performance and power with spintronics.”

The research paper was presented at the IEEE Int. Interconnect
Technology Conference on May 24 in San Jose, Calif., (
http://www.iitc-conference.org/novel-systems-ii.html).
The co-authors are Rouhollah Mousavi Iraei, Phillip Bonhomme, Nickvash
Kani, Sasikanth Manipatruni, Dmitri E. Nikonov, Ian A. Young and Azad
Naeemi.

About SRC

Celebrating more than 30 years of collaborative research for the
semiconductor industry, SRC defines industry needs, invests in and
manages the research that gives its members a competitive advantage in
the dynamic global marketplace. Awarded the National Medal of
Technology, America’s highest recognition for contributions to
technology, SRC expands the industry knowledge base and attracts premier
students to help innovate and transfer semiconductor technology to the
commercial industry. For more information, visit
https://www.src.org/.